Silver Shadow

What really happens when you lay down to die? Is there a gate keeper? A Grim Reaper... or is there something else not considered. Could death really be a choice?

You may know me as the Grim Reaper, The Gate Keeper, Angel of Death, or just Death. I am none of these. Yet in a way, I am all of these. To each and every person, I am but a choice. Not everyone that dies do I see. My purpose is not to direct souls to heaven or hell. I have no knowledge of whether either exists. I belong to no religion, nor do I discriminate souls based on his or her religious belief. I do not see young or old, male or female, straight or homosexual, Catholic or Muslim, Chinese, European or African.

                I do discriminate on who I visit, well that is not entirely true. I am a seeker of lost souls. You’ve heard the phrase, ‘bottom of the barrel,’ or ‘the end of their rope’ these are the souls I seek. I do not interfere with life’s course. It is not my place.  Nor do I hold that power.  I enter thousands of souls a day. I am the cool breeze that hits your face on a hot day. I travel on the mist. I hide in the fog. I travel in the morning sunrise and sunset. I have no bodily form, yet I mold into the bodies of those lost souls. Some would say, I am the silver shadow lurking within the shadows.

                I may have visited you several times or never before. We may in fact never meet. Even if we do, you would never know. I move swiftly from person to person. Most of the time I do not enter the person, I can tell they are fine as I pass on by.

When I find someone down and out, completely lost, I stay. Like I said, I do not interfere with his or her life course, I simply observe.  There is nothing more powerful than watching a person will them self  to live, or to watch the last ember of life flicker out when someone makes the decision to give up and live no more and they have let go of all that ails them. My place is not with those that are terminally ill. I can offer them nothing. Their destinies are already decided.

                My place is with those that have reached decision day, a drug addict, a car accident victim, suicides; the list is endless as to the situations people face when I arrive.

I bring peace to this decision. Some at the last second choose to live and reach for my hand that they thought existed. This is their decision to live " not mine. They crawl back alone. When they return, they speak of seeing a bright light, a white light or of walking down a white tunnel; this is not the entrance to heaven as many religions would like you to believe.  In all honesty, I do not know what is on the other side of this light. It is the weight of sin and regret lifting from this person as they leave the world of the living. As the light gets brighter and the darkness gives way, this is the person letting go of all regret, forgiving him or herself, accepting the mistakes and errors they have made.

I am but a guide to this journey. I delve deep within each person whose soul and will has caved to the enormous burdens and pain each carry and I help to release them from this pain. I bring peace in this time of immense personal loss. Humans find death a scary thing, fearful of the unknown.

The light these people believe they see is the release of their burden. I reach into their souls and hearts and grab hold of all that hurts them, that has brought them to this place in their life and take it all on so that he or she can die in peace. This release, this is the light they believe they see. There really is no light, it is simply the release of self guilt, self forgiveness. Only after the forgiveness has taken place within am I able to remove these pains and burdens.

At the last moment, some refuse to surrender, to release themselves from the world of the living. I’ve heard the stories of them saying they have been pulled back from the light, divine intervention. This is untrue. He or she made this choice.  They chose to live. This is why a life appears so different afterward " having truly faced deaths door.

There are no medical miracles. It is the will to survive, period. A choice made to live or die. Facing a life of burden, mistakes, it is difficult to let go. Some choose to return and make one last attempt to fix these errors rather than forgive themselves for the mistakes they have made. It is not my place to judge. My purpose is solely to guide this person through subconscious conversation to make the choice he or she needs to make.

If the person chooses to live, I ensure this choice is truly the choice they want and ask if they are sure they want to return to the life that led them to this point. Often this is a short conversation lasting only a few words. Occasionally an internal battle will rage in reaching the correct decision.  

                Not everyone ends in light. There are some that do not believe their burdens are burdens, or that their evils are truly evil and the self cannot or will not forgive. They die in darkness. I lead them through the same journey, yet the ending is never the same twice.

                Maybe one day we will meet, although only I will ever know. When the damp cold fog hits you, or a cool summer breeze breaks the heat of day, perhaps you’ll wonder if a silver shadow has slide by saying hello, or if it was simply fog or a breeze.

Author's Note

This is an idea I have had floating around in my head for a while, it's not normally what I write about, but I thought I'd jot it down on paper. There are so many short stories I can unwrap with this Silver Ghost, visiting bodies and souls and explaining each individual struggle... for now, I just wanted to introduce the Silver Shadow